Morality

Highly recommend the Rubin Report

Back in August, I listened to the Rubin Report interview with Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute. He -of course- talked about Objectivism, but then he brought up some interesting dilemmas about morality particularly from the christian perspective. He claimed that the notion of "loving thy neighbor as thyself" was not achievable even by the most altruistic. He posed the horrible hypothetical situation where you are forced to choose between saving the life of your child versus your neighbor's child. Admittedly, this took me a back, but I think I now have a response.

Before I give my response, I may need to describe what Objectivism actually is. If you recognized the name Ayn Rand, then you may also know that she is the author of books such as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. The latter is considered her magnum opus on the philosophy of Objectivism. This relatively new philosophy's basic premise is the rejection of altruism or -to put it simply- any charity whatsoever. I have personally never read The Fountainhead, but I have read the epic tome that is Atlas Shrugged which formed my opinions on Objectivism.

Greed is a moral good whereas charity is a moral evil. It is fine to be kind to one another if the intent is to get something in return. This may sound less than virtuous, but it tries to rationalize the common perception that people only do nice things for their own gain such as celebrities making sure they bring a camera crew with them as they do charity work or politicians doing nice things in order to get elected. In this essence, objectivists call out the altruists' hypocrisy. In Atlas Shrugged, the protagonist could not receive any help without subjecting herself into servitude. Maybe it would be kinder to simply help her out, but again, the objectivist will ask what their moral obligation is to help another. A question which runs contrary to Christian morality.

Not to be confused with anarchocapitalism, objectivists still believe in a role for government, but any government function that doesn't directly provide a service to the objectivist would be bad. In the podcast, Yaron Brooks actually went into detail basically saying that the free market should never allow violence to be a market, so the government has a justification to have a monopoly on that. If the free market managed violence, then violence would only grow (like the military industrial complex). However, social programs such as welfare would obviously be against their mindset since an objectivist may never directly benefit from that service. Atlas Shrugged literally had a character that would steal from the poor and give to the rich!

As Christians, we reject Objectivism since Christ teaches us to help those in need. With regards to Mr. Brook's hypothetical situation. I think it is safe to say that most people would choose their own child, but this doesn't mean that this discredits the notion of "loving thy neighbor as thyself". He argues that since people would naturally choose their own child, then the cornerstone of Christian morality is essentially meaningless. My retort is that this is not a fair question. Both outcomes would be emotionally horrible to any christian (and I imagine others as well). A fairer hypothetical situation would be: if you would sacrifice your own life for your own child, would you sacrifice your own life for your neighbor's child? Having served in the military, this is a very easy question for me to answer. Without hesitation, I would give the same amount to save my child's life as I would my neighbor's life. Both lives are valuable. Forcing me to choose implies that one life is more valuable than the other when in reality they aren't. Since my child's life is not mine to give, it is not fair to condemn my choice.

I think Objectivism does a fair job pointing out certain hypocrisies; however, I do believe that people will help others without expecting anything in return. An objectivist may argue that I'm only helping others to make myself feel good, but the truth is that I'll probably forget about helping another person in a day or so or maybe in even less time. One of the most beautiful messages of the classic movie, It's a Wonderful Life, is that the main character doesn't realize just how much he has helped his town through his small deeds until his guardian angel shows him. I can be rather pessimistic at times, but I am certainly not as pessimistic as an objectivist in the motivations for people to do good.